Soul of a Social Network

Unlike other hosting services where we can host our photos, music, data, or other things, hosting friends list ( on a social networks) is a bit different. Photos, Music, and Data are “objects”. Friends are not objects. They are real people with emotions and thoughts. They can identify good from bad and have feelings about certain things or certain way of doing things. This makes hosting of friend list different than hosting any other “possessions”.

A social network not only has to provide competing services but also has to appear very genuine in its interaction with its users. It should give a perception of being an active “listener” and not causing “harm” to the social fabric. More importantly, it should not appear to be piling on the private information of people and profit from it. People, in general, understand that the Social Networking company has to make money to provide the service to them. But if they feel that the company is just bent upon extracting money off of their personal profiles, there would be a sense of disenchantment among the users.

Recent euphoria about G+ validates this theory. G+ seems to be more open than Facebook and for a large portion of users, it appears to be closer-to-heart than Facebook. It violates privacy almost as equally as Facebook does. But still people are happy to give it a pass. Difference being that G+ appears to be listening to what people are talking about. Hordes of Google Product managers + Engineers are openly soliciting feedback in public stream. I myself had a hangout experience with G+ product Managers where I shared my opinions and gave some inputs. Whether or not these suggestions are accepted is another thing…but atleast Google plus appears to be making an effort to be closer to people’s hearts. And thats what counts when you want to host their friends list and be a provider of their social fabric.